54 HUNTING SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



themselves with the idea of the labor prepared for them 

 on the morrow. 



That morrow now come, one sounds a horn from the 

 door of the store-house, at the call of which each returns 

 to his work. The sawyers, the millers, the rafters, and 

 raftsmen are all immediately busy. The mills are all 

 going, and the logs, which a few months before were the 

 supporters of broad and leafy tops, are now in the act of 

 being split asunder. The boards are then launched into 

 the stream, and rafts are formed of them for market. 



During the summer and autumnal months, the Lehigh, 

 a small river of itself, soon becomes extremely shallow, 

 and to float the rafts would prove impossible, had not 

 art managed to provide a supply of water for this ex- 

 press purpose. At the breast of the lower dam is a 

 curiously constructed lock, which is opened at the ap- 

 proach of the rafts. They pass through this lock with 

 the rapidity of lightning, propelled by the water that had 

 been accumulated in the dam, and w r hich is of itself 

 generally sufficient to float them to Mauch Chunk, after 

 which, entering regular canals, they find no other impedi- 

 ments, but are conveyed to their ultimate destination. 



Before population had greatly advanced in this part 

 of Pennsylvania, game of all descriptions found within 

 that range was extremely abundant. The Elk itself did 

 not disdain to browse on the shoulders of the mountains, 

 near the Lehigh. Bears and the Common Deer must 

 have been plentiful, as, at the moment when I .write, 

 many of both kinds are seen and killed by the resident 

 hunters. The Wild Turkey, the Pheasant, and the 

 Grouse, are also tolerably abundant ; and as to Trout in 



